The It List: 'Die Hard With a Vengeance' turns 25, 'Masked Singer' reveals Season 3 winner, Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae's 'The Lovebirds' premieres and the best in pop culture the week of May 18, 2020

The It Listis Yahoo’s weekly look at the best in pop culture, including movies, music, TV, streaming, games, books, podcasts and more. During the coronavirus pandemic, when most of us are staying at home, we’re going to spotlight things you can enjoy from your couch, whether solo or in small groups, and leave out the rest. With that in mind, here are our picks for May 18-24, including the best deals we could find for each. (Yahoo Entertainment may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.)

STREAM IT: 25 years ago, John McClane traded a Los Angeles skyscraper for New York’s mean streets in Die Hard With a Vengeance

Hot town, summer in the city: You’d best believe John McClane’s tank top is getting dirty and gritty. Bruce Willis’ssuper-cop had his third — and some have argued, best — adventure 25 years ago when Die Hard With a Vengeance blasted its way into theaters. After sitting out Die Hard 2, returning director John McTiernan and screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh retrofitted Hensleigh’s original screenplay, Simon Says, into a trilogy-capping joyride that turned an entire city, rather than a single skyscraper, into a danger-filled gauntlet for the death-averse hero. Die Hard With a Vengeance also gets plenty of mileage out of Samuel L. Jackson’s performance as Zeus Carver, an ordinary New Yorker who becomes McClane’s unlikely sidekick in combating an ingenious revenge scheme orchestrated by Jeremy Irons’s Simon Gruber, brother of Alan Rickman’s legendary big-screen bad guy, Hans. (The year before Vengeance, Willis and Jackson appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s era-defining Pulp Fiction, but didn’t share any scenes together.) After planting bombs around Manhattan, Gruber sends McClane scurrying from neighborhood to neighborhood, starting in Harlem where the cop is forced to wear an outrageously offensive sandwich board — a scene that the filmmakers almost certainly wouldn’t be able to include today. (Although it’s worth noting that the sign Willis wore during filming contained a much less inflammatory statement that was later amended in post-production.) Twelve years after Die Hard With a Vengeance, Willis sought to revive his signature franchise with 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard and 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard, but neither of those latter-day sequels packs this movie’s firepower… or entertainment factor. — Ethan Alter

Die Hard With a Vengeance is currently streaming on HBO Go and HBO Now.

WATCH IT: Turtles and Frogs and Night Angels, oh my! Who will win The Masked Singer?

Providing the escapist, absurdist entertainment we all need — and transporting us back to a time when the word “mask” was associated with fun phenomena — this Wednesday, The Masked Singer Season 3 concludes with a bonkers showdown between its final celebrity cosplayers. If you’re into spoilers, check out our expert predictions about who will be unmasked during this epic triple-reveal. — Lyndsey Parker

The Season 3 finale of The Masked Singer airs Wednesday, May 20 at 8 p.m. on Fox.

STREAM IT: Man of many talents Patton Oswalt returns to stand-up with a new special

In the ubiquitous TV star’s last stand-up special, 2017’s Annihilation, he covered the unexpected death of his wife, Michelle McNamara. This time around, Oswalt, who married actress Meredith Salenger in July 2017, addresses the more mundane, like being in his fifties. Oswalt riffs on choosing a breakfast cereal, attending his daughter’s second-grade art show and all that buying a house entails. In the trailer, he cracked that he found a contractor a friend likened to Michelangelo — it sounds much funnier when he says it. — Raechal Shewfelt

Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything is available Tuesday, May 19 on Netflix.

Since the video game-obsessed characters on this Apple TV+ comedy live on their computers anyway, it’s no surprise to discover that they’re still glued to their screens during quarantine. But this special remotely-produced episode also finds the drama in the current state of the world, touching on the extreme isolation many are wrestling with. “We were talking about isolation and how people are struggling with it,” Mythic Quest co-creator and star, Rob McElhenney, tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Certainly, the pandemic is a major health concern, but that also extends into mental health. We realized we wanted to honor that and delve into those particular issues.” Not that Mythic Quest has suddenly gotten as serious as, say, Red Dead Redemption. The half-hour “Quarantine” episode still features plenty of goofball antics with McElhenney and the rest of the cast. And there might be more remotely-produced episodes on the way. “If the audience responds to it, and there’s an appetite for it,” the star teases. “It was hard, but I really enjoyed the process, and I want to get people working again.”

WATCH IT: New Top Gun release holds us over until delayed sequel lands

We were supposed to get a new Top Gun movie next month, with the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick originally scheduled for release in late June before the coronavirus wiped out (at least) the first half of the summer movie season. It will now take flight in theaters Christmas weekend, but in the meantime fans of Tom Cruise and his fellow flyboys do get some consolation. This week Paramount is releasing the 1986 favorite in a newly remastered 4K Ultra HD edition that includes a new featurette with the creators of both the original and sequel discussing the film's legacy, and a retrospective piece from 2016 looking at three decades of Top Gun love. For fans who celebrate Cruise's entire catalog, a pair of the actor's other films — Days of Thunder and War of the Worlds — also get spiffy new 4K treatments this week. — Kevin Polowy

Twenty-three years after The Full Monty, director Peter Cattaneo puts on a new (fully-clothed) show in Military Wives, arriving on VOD this week after a successful premiere at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Kristin Scott Thomas and Catastrophe’s Sharon Hogan play the spouses of recently-deployed soldiers who form a choir with their fellow military wives. Naturally, things don’t get off to a harmonious start, as competing agendas — as well as personal tragedies — threaten the fledgling group’s future. But if you don’t think it all ends with a rousing concert designed to bring moviegoers to their feet… well, then you clearly need to program a toe-tapping double bill of The Full Monty and Military Wives. — E.A.

Military Wives will be available to stream on Hulu on Friday, May 22, and can also be rented or purchased on Amazon and other digital platforms.

STREAM IT: The Lovebirds finds a home on Netflix

Newly buff funnyman, Kumail Nanjiani, partners with Issa Rae for an action comedy about a couple whose relationship is tested when they become accidental witnesses to a murder. The movie also re-teams Nanjiani with director Michael Showalter, who previously helmed 2017’s Sundance darling, The Big Sick. — E.A.

The Lovebirds premieres Friday, May 22 on Netflix.

HEAR IT: The Indigo Girls ‘look’ back

After 30-plus years of making music together, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers reflect on their college-rock beginnings on their 15th studio album, Look Long, with nostalgic tracks like “When We Were Writers.” But the activists are also timely as ever, thanks to biting social-commentary songs like “Sh** Kickin'” and "Muster.” — L.P.

BUY IT: Gather all your Minions! The Rise of Gru toys are now available at major retailers

The latest entry in the Despicable Me franchise, Minions: The Rise of Gru, has been delayed until July 2, 2021, but Just Play is making sure that kids can fill their rooms with these adorable banana-colored troublemakers. The company has a slew of new Minions plush toys currently available at retailers like Walmart and Amazon that come in various shapes and sizes. Some of these dolls will even bust a move disco-style or laugh and giggle along with you. Get a (stink-free) surprise with a special fart blaster that unleashes the Minions’s favorite sound… as well as a collectible character. — E.A.

Just Play’s Rise of Gru toys are available at major retailers like Amazon and Walmart.

WATCH IT: At Home With Amy Sedaris will make you rethink your Zoom background… while laughing hysterically

The funny lady returns in all new episodes of her demented Martha Stewart-esque show. In the third season, Sedaris welcomes famous friends including David Alan Grier, Michael Cera and Ana Gasteyer, who join her as she attempts to instruct viewers on how to be a domestic goddess. Sedaris will share her wisdom on the best way to pack a bag for vacation (for when we can leave again), how to throw an exceedingly awkward backyard cookout (for when we can hang out in groups again) and the path to surviving pregnancy, as only she can. — R.S.

The third season of At Home With Amy Sedaris premieres Wednesday, May 20 at 10 p.m. on truTV.

WATCH IT: Flashdance gives us that '80s feeling with new Blu-ray release

Some things in movie history are absolute: The Godfather: Part III is the "worst" in the trilogy, Shakespeare in Love should have never beaten Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture… and Jennifer Beals is the sexiest dancing steel mill worker who ever existed. Adrian Lyne's undeniable campy but excessively watchable musical drama Flashdance was of course the film to introduce Beals's blue-collar Pittsburgh move-buster Alex Owen to the world, set to the unmistakably ‘80s sounds of Michael Sembello's "Maniac" and Irene Cara's "Flashdance… What A Feeling." It's the perfect type of feel-good film to revisit during quarantine — or even add to your Blu-ray collection with a new "Paramount Presents" release that includes a fold-out movie poster and new commentary from beloved critic Leonard Maltin. — K.P.

HEAR IT: The 1975 is the sound of 2020

The shape-shifting Britpoppers’s hotly anticipated Notes on a Conditional Form is an ambitious, 22-track opus, featuring a contribution from Greta Thunberg and ranging from the explosive, Marilyn Manson-esque punk stormer “People” to the synthy soft-rocker “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know).” It’s the second installment in the 1975’s current album-release cycle, which they call "Music for Cars,” following 2018’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships. — L.P.

Download/stream The 1975’s Notes on a Conditional Form on Apple Music.

WATCH IT: This year’s National Memorial Day Concert honors veterans remotely, but still with plenty of heart and song

In an ordinary year, the annual National Memorial Day Concert would celebrate America’s veterans in the heart of the nation’s capital. But 2020 is anything but an ordinary year: With all public gatherings and events on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, the concert’s organizers have planned a remotely-produced broadcast that will include classic performances from past editions, along with newly-recorded songs and tributes. Regular co-hosts Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise join forces again as the evening’s emcees, while Oscar-nominee Cynthia Erivo, Grand Ole Opry favorite Trace Adkins, Hamilton star Christopher Jackson and the National Symphony Orchestra will perform from locations around the country. In addition to military veterans, the show will also honor those workers currently providing essential services on the frontlines of the pandemic. — E.A.

The National Memorial Day Concert airs Sunday, May 24 at 8 p.m. on PBS.

HEAR IT: Day by Day podcast brings short stories with big names and good causes

It's a great time to discover new podcasts — even if we don't necessarily have those commute times right now — and among those recently launched, few have more appropriate quarantining monikers than Jamie Dolan and Adam Faze's Day by Day. The shortform narrative series pairs new writers every other week with recognizable voice talent who bring their fiction to life, including Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea), Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) and Gideon Adlon (Blockers). Better yet, each episode is designed to raise funds for a specific COVID19-releated cause (so the Brooklyn-set "Closed Germ Loop" episode, for instance, called for donations to the Clinton Hill / Fort Greene Mutual Aid, which is providing groceries for BK residents in need). Day by Day, then, is win-win entertainment. — K.P.

Day by Day is available on Apple Podcasts.

HEAR & READ IT: A harrowing journey through Hollywood Park

L.A. indie-rockers the Airborne Toxic Event’s first full-length record in five years is a concept album accompanied by frontman Mikel Jollett’s gripping and heartbreaking memoir by the same title. The entire Hollywood Park project, which chronicles Jollett’s dysfunctional coming-of-age in the infamous ‘70s cult Synanon, is a must-listen and -read. — L.P.

Download/stream The Airborne Toxic Event’s Hollywood Park on Apple Music; Mikel Jollett’s Hollywood Park: A Memoir is available on Amazon.